Acupuncture: The Easy Way - Or the Hard Way

By Thomas Blasejewicz

Here I describe some personal views pertaining to acupuncture mostly with a layman audience in mind. I firmly believe, that the "Japanese style" of acupuncture and moxibustion is better suited for most western foreigners than the Chinese form. The Chinese are, however, much more actively promoting, or rather conducting propaganda activities, their style to convince the world, that the Chinese way is the ONLY REAL way of going about acupuncture - or oriental medicine in a wider sense of the word.
While this is NOT a textbook, I try to explain the characteristics of a number of representative Japanese techniques. To make things easier to understand, I added about 50 pictures.
Being "personal views" a lot of people might object to those and may even consider them unacceptable accusations. But as long as there is - at least theoretically - a freedom of speech, I take the liberty of saying what I think.
Also, since I am not a scholar, parts of what I wrote may academically not be entirely accurate. If anybody has comments or corrections regarding wrong statements to offer, please, by all means to not hesitate to contact me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Blasejewicz
• Release date: Mar 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311525796

Thomas Blasejewicz

I am a native German, but I came to Japan 34 years ago in order to learn the Japanese way of archery, called Kyudo. I ended up as a practicing acupuncturist and freelance translator, never leaving the first station of my planned trip around the world.

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Acupuncture -- The Easy Way – Or the Hard Way

by Thomas Blasejewicz

Copyright 2013 Thomas Blasejewicz

Published by Thomas Blasejewicz at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Disclaimer - I speak only for myself!

Acknowledgment

List of images

Introduction

A little history

History of Acupuncture (mainly China)

Middle history

Modern era

History of Japanese Acupuncture

The tools

Manufacturing

Moxibustion

The craft

Needling techniques

Telephone technique

Moxibustion techniques

Direct moxibustion

Indirect moxibustion

Concepts

Patients

Patients now and then

Research / evidence

Strange remarks regarding evidence

(1) Invisible supermen

(2) Imperceptible smells

(3) Advanced physics

(4) Chinese evidence

Some last words

Acupuncture in Japan 03/2011 – Note by a visitor

References and literature

ENGLISH

JAPANESE

LINKS/REPORTS

Glossary

About the author

Other books by the author

Find me

Disclaimer - I speak only for myself!

Here I would like to take the liberty of expressing my personal views pertaining to a few things important to me. Since they are my PERSONAL views, everybody is free to object to those views, criticize or even ridicule them, if that seems appropriate. These being personal views, I DO NOT represent anybody or anything, nor do I speak for a particular master, school or country (Japan), for that matter. I am definitely not authorized to speak on behalf of Japan, but take the liberty of expressing my preference of Japanese style over the world-famous TCM, even if there is no clear definition of what Japanese style refers to.

Thus, I exploit the theoretically granted right of freedom of speech. That is, as long as the Chinese with their ambition of world domination cannot reach me with their censorship and/or send me their mafia, or if the Japanese don’t consider me a public risk and maybe send a secret police unit associated with the planned NSC (a surveillance institution based on the NSA), or else if the NSA itself doesn’t send a hit squad after me after wiretapping my communications and hacking into my computers. Probably the lowest risk comes from the Japanese. Not because they are particularly nice people, but because influential people really don't care about oriental medicine here, so nobody feels threatened.

In the little text below I will try to address a few topics related to oriental medicine and attempt to describe my very personal comparison between characteristics of Japanese and Chinese concepts and practices. Yet, and I have to emphasize this (again), I am not a scholar or otherwise particularly learned or wise man. My text does not represent a scientific study of any sort. In case I do make mistakes or present absolutely unacceptable assertions, the reader is not only free to, but actually encouraged to, point out inadequacies.

It should be obvious that I do not approve of Chinese officialdom's way of handling things. And I MUST say, I do not condemn all Chinese persons. Actually I do have a Chinese friend to whom I owe a lot and respect as a fellow human. Yet, this does not alter my negative feelings toward the Chinese one-and only Chinese medicine as well as the Chinese, whose publicly declared goal is world domination in this field.

Neither is it any secret that in China EVERY bit of information is screened, checked and censored. Unfortunately for the people of China, there is no such thing as freedom in that country. Neither freedom of speech nor freedom of thought. If in China EVERYTHING is censored and manipulated in order to suit the official views considered most beneficial for the people, what credible reason could there be for excluding oriental medicine from such manipulation? I would like to hear it.

Just think about TCM = Traditional Chinese Medicine. Most practitioners around the world know, that there is not much tradition in this TCM. It was synthesized in the 1960's by Mao Zedong, extracting some convenient elements from the real tradition, discarding everything unpleasant, adding lots of Western medicine, stirred and cooked until it was palatable to the world.

I prefer to believe that professional practitioners know this. But advertising TCM to the public as traditional medicine without clarifying explanations is at least in my view a deception of the unsuspecting public.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am NOT trying to indulge in any form of nationalism. First and foremost, because I am not a Japanese. As a German I have to live with a very dark history of nationalism on my back, even though I was born after that nightmare. Nationalism as a social and political trend is at best counterproductive and more likely poisonous to the state of mind of the human race as a whole. While the currently fashionable concepts of globalization pose a threat to national identity (characteristics), this trend should be applied to the spread and application of knowledge and information.

While there are biological traits common to ALL human beings, every single one is at the same time unique – thus an individual. No two completely alike. That is, as long as we can stay away from cloning ourselves into madness. If anybody either forsakes this uniqueness by personal choice or loses it through force(s) from above, s/he loses her/his humanity. Even though I acknowledge the (mostly) Chinese origin of acupuncture, this does not prevent me from preferring the characteristics of Japanese acupuncture over its Chinese counterpart.

Immediately after I came to Japan, I decided to change my visa status (details in my autobiography, currently available in Japanese and German). To do so at that time, one had to leave the country and I chose to go to Hong Kong because I know someone there. There I learned from firsthand experience, that shopkeepers charged me twice the amount of what they took from a Chinese customer standing next to me. The involved amount was not that much and I could not argue in Chinese anyway, so I pretended, nothing had happened. Yet, the behavior of the shopkeepers seemd to be considered completely normal.

By now I am living in Japan for 34 years, but have NEVER been taken advantage of in any similar way. That does not mean the Japanese are angels. Every day the news is full of reports about corruption, deception, etc., almost all of which can be traced back to the insatiable desire to make money. Maybe I am just imagining it, but I am under the impression that these instances have increased in frequency over the last 30 years.

AND ... I fear this unfortunate trend may spread even to the realm of acupuncture.

Acknowledgment

Many thanks to Arthur O’Keefe for taking the time to proofread the text prior to publication.

List of images

1. Fuji-home --- my new home, as opposed to my old home = Germany

2. History 1 --- illustration of a meridian

3. History 2 --- bladder meridian

4. Nine needles --- illustration from the classics

5. Chinese needles, short

6. Chinese needle, long, 10 cm

7.